Irish Counties - Who Subsidises Who?

futurehope

Hi,

Ireland has 26 counties and I'm wondering does anyone have available figures on which counties generate Ireland's tax revenues and which spend the cash? In other words a net figure for each county?

If these aren't available are there regional figures available?

Cheers...

Kevster

I'm not sure, but I'd say you could send in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request into - perhaps - Dublin City Council about this. i'm not sure though...

O'Coonassa

futurehope wrote: »

Hi,

Ireland has 26 counties

You're hilarious Paddy

Lemming

O'Coonassa wrote: »

You're hilarious Paddy

Why? He's correct in context of his question. We have twenty-six counties; the other six are under the auspices of the UK and thus exempt from consideration.

oscarBravo

The next person who tries to convert this thread into yet another tiresome squabble over Northern Ireland is getting banned for six months.

I'm not kidding.

mike65

I'm going to guess that broadly the Pale is subsidising the rest of the country.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Alcatel

And they have the cheek to give us guff when we go down there for holidays... "Bloody Dublin people coming down, wrecking the peace and dirtying the place up." Yes, well, we're paying for the cleanup crew

In all seriousness, there's been a long running squall of funds going to the West in particular, and I think that plenty of it has been wasted - keeping an economically backwards part of the world subsidised for... What?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Saabdub

Ireland has 29 County Councils, 5 City Councils, 5 Borough Councils and a plethora of Town Councils http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentAdministration/LocalAuthorities/

I don't think that redistribution of resources within a single political, monetary and fiscal area is really an issue, after all it is one of the arguments for the modern nation state.

However, the scale and organization of Local Government should be an issue. Why does a modern nation state persist with areas of local government jurisdiction that were shired in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and then base all decisions and services on these Medieval entities. Surely a more rational and efficient system of Local Government can be devised.

Alcatel

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Because it's our money? Subsidise their schools and hospitals for sure, but regional flights?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Alcatel

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yes, and this is a democracy, so I get to pass comment.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

P. Breathnach

Alcatel wrote: »

... In all seriousness, there's been a long running squall of funds going to the West in particular, and I think that plenty of it has been wasted - keeping an economically backwards part of the world subsidised for... What?

To encourage people to stay in those regions, and not add to congestion in Dublin.

blast05

In all seriousness, there's been a long running squall of funds going to the West in particular, and I think that plenty of it has been wasted - keeping an economically backwards part of the world subsidised for... What?

There are tens of thousands of people from the west living in the greater Dublin area who would much prefer to be living close to where they are from but government economic policy has focused development on the eastern seaboard leaving these people with no choice but to move there.

The problem is not that there is too much money being "wasted" in the west, but rather that not enough has been spent to make it more viable for companies to locate there and industry to develop. Even lage chunks of the BMW region development funds have consistently ended up being spent on projects on the eastern seaboard cos of petty policitical intervention.

Alcatel

blast05 wrote: »

There are tens of thousands of people from the west living in the greater Dublin area who would much prefer to be living close to where they are from but government economic policy has focused development on the eastern seaboard leaving these people with no choice but to move there.

The problem is not that there is too much money being "wasted" in the west, but rather that not enough has been spent to make it more viable for companies to locate there and industry to develop. Even lage chunks of the BMW region development funds have consistently ended up being spent on projects on the eastern seaboard cos of petty policitical intervention.

I think the main reason for not doing business out West is precisely because it is remote - The major ports (Dublin, Dundalk, Cork) are on the East Coast and so is the major population center. It makes more economic sense to work there than to build a road to the West just so we can tell some foreign company "Look, we built a road... Please set up a business there now."

The big push to put money into the west was a waste. Let the market decide where it wants to do business.

mike65

Cork on the east coast?

oscarBravo

Alcatel wrote: »

The big push to put money into the west was a waste. Let the market decide where it wants to do business.

...and let three million people move to Dublin to look for work. Sounds like a plan, alright - Dublin doesn't have nearly enough infrastructure problems.

Alcatel

oscarBravo wrote: »

...and let three million people move to Dublin to look for work. Sounds like a plan, alright - Dublin doesn't have nearly enough infrastructure problems.

That's where spending the money in the East rather than the West would have made some sense.

If you were setting up your global business in Ireland, where would you go?

Cork on the east coast?

Not quite, but it's not "The West" either.

stepbar

Well holy god lets all move to Dublin, shur Dublin subsidises the half of the country anyhow :rolleyes:

If there was any other option I'd be living and working in my own county. I'm afraid (unless you have ambitions beyond mucking out cow sheds or working in the local supermarket or jobs like that) there are very few options for people from my neck of the wood but to move to cities like Galway and Dublin to get on and progress in life. Any bit of investment in the outer regions is very welcome and most of the time has a better overall effect than a similer investment in Dublin for example.

stepbar

Alcatel wrote: »

That's where spending the money in the East rather than the West would have made some sense.

If you were setting up your global business in Ireland, where would you go?


Not quite, but it's not "The West" either.

If I was setting up my "global" business it shouldn't matter where one sets it up if the infrastructure is in place. I could setup a business in my home county of Leitrim but for the problems of broadband access. The other infrastructure is there already. There is no place I know of that isn't at least 2- 3 hours away from an airport with flight leading on to London and Paris and from there to where ever you want to go.

Schuhart

futurehope wrote: »

does anyone have available figures on which counties generate Ireland's tax revenues and which spend the cash? In other words a net figure for each county?

You'll find the figures here. The bottom line is that people outside Dublin probably have a higher effective disposable income. Income distribution between regions in Ireland is remarkable uniform, despite the efforts of Irish Rural Link to pretend otherwise.

blast05 wrote: »

government economic policy has focused development on the eastern seaboard leaving these people with no choice but to move there.

This is a complete reversal of reality. Government policy has been to starve the East of resources and encourage the West. The outcome that you see is the failure of that policy.

zootroid

Schuhart wrote: »

This is a complete reversal of reality. Government policy has been to starve the East of resources and encourage the West. The outcome that you see is the failure of that policy.

I think I remember the government having a national spatial strategy, but it was never really implemented, or else implemented very poorly.

Anyway, it always felt like there were two economies to me, Dublin and the rest of the country. If you wanted work, you had to go to Dublin.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

jimmmy

blast05 wrote: »

There are tens of thousands of people from the west living in the greater Dublin area who would much prefer to be living close to where they are from but government economic policy has focused development on the eastern seaboard leaving these people with no choice but to move there.

The problem is not that there is too much money being "wasted" in the west, but rather that not enough has been spent to make it more viable for companies to locate there and industry to develop. Even lage chunks of the BMW region development funds have consistently ended up being spent on projects on the eastern seaboard cos of petty policitical intervention.

I agree. There should be more govt jobs decentralised too, as Dublin has too many infrastructure / traffic problems etc

prof_frink_2000

I'm not trying to stir anything up here just hope to give an insight. My current understanding of regional revenue is as follows and comes from asking people who work in the civil service.

Local Authorities have to make up there budget from motor tax, development levies (~5000euro per new build) and corporate rates. They then get extra funding for roads maintanence usually 50% of what they need from central funds. Specific capital projects are funded jointly by the local authority and the dept of environment. For example a new "water treatment plant" would be funded roughly as follows. The local authority have to commission an indepenant report showing the breakdown of what groups the users will be in:
Existing Residential
Furture Residential
Existing Comercial
Future Comercial

The dept of enviroment will pick up the tab for the following:
Existing Residential - 100%
Furture Residential - 60%
Existing Comercial - 0%
Future Comercial - 0%

So the local authority then has to get funding via loans etc for the balance of the money.

Schools, hospitals, gardai is centrally funded.

The western counties authorities get pissed with the dubs for the following reasons:
When you buy a holiday house (in lets say achill) your stamp duty goes to the government not the local authority. Development levies only appeared in the last 7-10 years. So the local authority has to maintain your water supply and waste water collection and road maintainence from permanent residents motor tax and corporate rates. So the road through achill has 1000 cars using it from dublin but only 20 cars from achill pay the motor tax.

To a huge extent they have got themselves in this problem by bad planning but the whole aspect of how we as a nation fund our local services needs to be looked at by central government as the current system is failing. If things have changed in the last year or two then by all means please correct me.

Benedict XVI

zootroid wrote: »

I think I remember the government having a national spatial strategy, but it was never really implemented, or else implemented very poorly.

On paper the spatial strategy looked good in the sense that it identified 'hubs' in the regions that would be developed, however then McCreevy announced his decentralisation plan in a budget (can't remember which year) and the locations for decentralisation showed little or no resemblance to the 'hubs' identified in the spatial strategy, the two plans where at odds with each other.

Another perfect example of 'joined up thinking' by the 2002- 2007 government.

(then the electorate went and elected them again)

MaxFlower

Alcatel wrote: »

And they have the cheek to give us guff when we go down there for holidays... "Bloody Dublin people coming down, wrecking the peace and dirtying the place up." Yes, well, we're paying for the cleanup crew

In all seriousness, there's been a long running squall of funds going to the West in particular, and I think that plenty of it has been wasted - keeping an economically backwards part of the world subsidised for... What?

Unlike Dublin where all funds are used efficiently all the time.

Alcatel wrote: »

Not quite, but it's not "The West" either.

Yeah actually it's a little place called 'The South'

futurehope

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback and links chaps. However, I can't seem to get my hands on exactly what I'm looking for, which is Ireland's equivalent of the following:

http://www.channel4.com/news/article.jsp?id=1041867

(see table)

It might be that I'm too thick to analyse the data provided, or perhaps the exact figures I require aren't available for Ireland in the form I require?

Schuhart

zootroid wrote: »

I think I remember the government having a national spatial strategy, but it was never really implemented, or else implemented very poorly.

Indeed, it was completely undermined by the pointless Government ‘decentralisation’ fiasco.

zootroid wrote: »

Anyway, it always felt like there were two economies to me, Dublin and the rest of the country. If you wanted work, you had to go to Dublin.

Indeed, but you’ll clearly understand the massive (failed) efforts to drive business out of Dublin and into the regions. The Shannon Stopover policy is the most obvious example. The Stopover managed to drive business out of Dublin, all right. Problem is it drove it to Manchester and London.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

To be clear, I’m not denying that economic reality. I’m just pointing out that less well off regions do actually get a financial digout.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t. I’m not saying people wouldn’t prefer jobs to welfare. I’m just making sure the facts of the matter are on display.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Its good that this air of reality exists. I mean, it is feasible to have a couple of meaningful economic concentrations outside Dublin. But its just not feasible for every town or every county to be a major centre. Policies aimed at supporting every centre have actually done more harm than good.

jimmmy wrote: »

I agree. There should be more govt jobs decentralised too, as Dublin has too many infrastructure / traffic problems etc

I don’t think this reflects the facts of the matter. Firstly, Dublin actually doesn’t have a particular high proportion of public servants compared to other counties. I know this is actually bizarre when you consider it’s the capital. But Laois, Roscommon, Leitrim, Kildare and North Tipp all actually have proportionately more civil servants than Dublin.

Secondly, the traffic problems in Dublin are mostly about lack of infrastructure investment. Dublin is not a particularly large city. The reason there are traffic problems can mostly be attributed by the lack of public investment in the city until very recent times. Public investment is only made in Dublin long after the need becomes undeniable. By contrast, the West gets frontloaded infrastructure – airports being a prime example of this.

prof_frink_2000 wrote: »

The western counties authorities get pissed with the dubs for the following reasons:
When you buy a holiday house (in lets say achill) your stamp duty goes to the government not the local authority. Development levies only appeared in the last 7-10 years. So the local authority has to maintain your water supply and waste water collection and road maintainence from permanent residents motor tax and corporate rates. So the road through achill has 1000 cars using it from dublin but only 20 cars from achill pay the motor tax.

As I understand it, all motor tax collected nationally goes in to one Local Government Fund. What local authorities get paid out of the fund, so far as I know, doesn’t particularly depend on where that tax is collected.

You’ll notice from this list that BMW counties tend to get much higher per capita grants from the Local Government fund than others. That may or may not be justified. But, again, I just think it’s important to establish these plain facts.

I'd also assume (but don't know) that service charges for refuse services are charged per house - or, if a house isn't paying a service charge, that its not going to get a service.

That said, I'd agree there are social problems associated with excessive holiday home development. But lets recall that the landowners who sell sites for holiday homes, and the builders who build them, are partners in the creation of those problems. We have a weakness in our political culture that facilitates jobs at any price. Put it in the context of Inishowen's massive unemployment problem. Picture the conflicts that arise if those unemployed folk find they can make a reasonable living from building holiday homes.

Just to try to make a conclusion to this too lengthy post I've written. Frequently the impression is created that tax raised in the BMW region is spent in the East. This is simply a reversal of reality. Now, I’m not saying that these transfers of resources should not take place. I just want to make it clear that they do take place, in a context where much rhetoric seems aimed at pretending the West is neglected and does not get extra funding. (Just to clarify to avoid unintended offence, I mean political rhetoric in the media. This is not a criticism of anyone posting on this thread, where people just seem interested in establishing the facts.)